


Detriment

by orphan_account



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Loss, M/M, Modern Era
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-06
Updated: 2013-12-06
Packaged: 2018-01-03 15:53:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1072335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Re-upload + changes to Erwin's past.] </p><p>Levi returns home from extra classes to find out that he doesn't have a home or parents to return to anymore — except for a burning building that continues to burn even inside his mind. He then stays at Erwin's place for the time being at the request of Mike, a firefighter who sympathizes with his situation. Will Levi decide to stay at Erwin's place indefinitely, or will he leave? What will he do when he finds out about something that will completely change their relationship?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The fire

"That's it for class today," the teacher says, closing his book in finality after glancing at the clock that reads 6:30 in the evening. The bell doesn't go off. He takes off his spectacles slowly and rubbed his temples, speaking to students who are currently packing their bags. "Remember to hand in your homework on Monday. And I don't want to hear anymore excuses for not handing it up on time — most of you don't even have a dog, the last time I checked."

Hanji chuckles at his last sentence, and Levi grunts tiredly, finally looking up.

The teacher, Mr. Allard, is in his mid-thirties, people would think. His looks are considerably good— dark hair, blue eyes— according to some female students who apparently have a crush on him. Levi thinks those girls don't have a chance at all and should just give up because the wedding ring on the teacher's ring finger is painfully obvious. Either they're getting their hopes up or they're oblivious.

The class falls into an uncomfortable silence for a second, each of them minding their own business. And immediately after, they greet each other; the noise slowly returning to the room like a revival — most of them sighing in relief and exhaustion about the long day being finally over. Among all the incoherent chatter he can hear as they all exited the classroom, most of it are about new fast food restaurants or staying over for the weekend.

Levi has been drawing stick-mans on his plain sheet of paper for the last few hours when he was supposed to do the questions on the whiteboard. He crumples the paper afterwards, aiming it into the dustbin at the right hand corner of the class. Extra classes are exhausting, but there are many syllables they can cover during these lessons because of the time constraint in normal school hours.

The lessons are mostly about Math, equations, and memorizing formulas that he can't just place anywhere inside his head.

All of what Levi has learnt today comes leaking out of his ears.

"Hey," Hanji says from beside him, smiling. Her head tilts to make eye contact with him. "You okay?"

He's surprised at how energetic she still is, given how long they've been sitting there listening to the teacher go on about numbers. Levi then supposes Hanji's just that sort of person; although her main interest is in Science— mostly Biology— she still likes to pay attention to the Math teacher. But as for Biology, honestly, she can stay in the lab for hours even after the sun has come down.

Security has once asked— or rather, dragged— her to leave.

"Not really," Levi tells her, slinging his bag across his body. "Math can do that to a person. Don't even know what the fuck that was all about."

She then pats him on the back understandingly, but she uses too much strength as usual. Hanji laughs loudly. "Well, I know that feeling. Can't help it, though, we've a lot to cover for the upcoming test."

Levi doubts she understands that sort of feeling, but he doesn't comment on it.

"I'm just going to flunk again," he says distastefully, walking out of the classroom at a slower pace, not bothering to push his chair back in.

Sometimes he wonders what the point is in pushing chairs back in if they're just going to pull them out the next morning, anyway. Levi runs a few fingers up his hair, resting his eyes for a bit as he walks out. Most of the students have already left; and just thirty more minutes from the current time, the school gates will be locked after the security guard checks for whether there are still people in the building.

"Hey — wait," Hanji quickly takes her own bag, much heavier and thicker than Levi's, and follows him out of the classroom. They walk along the corridors among the chatters of others. Throwing a rare and genuine glance at him, she says, "You know, you can't keep flunking tests of subjects you don't like. What're you gonna do if you can't graduate?"

Levi kicks a crumbled piece of colored paper on the ground. He hates this classroom and how people never clean it up, not even the hired cleaners bother to sweep all of the dirt up. He can do a better job at this if he wants to, he thinks to himself.

"Fuck if I care," he says, like it is poison on his tongue. "I can just quit school and go find a job, anyway."

"Find a job? And do what — flip burgers? Sweep the leaves in the park? Count them? You might as well eat them for lunch or something, they're pretty crunchy," Hanji asks, and although it sounds like an insult, it isn't. Levi can tell that her question was just mostly curiosity after all the time he has known her, although unwillingly.

Most of what comes out of her mouth isn't pretty, and he is used to this. After all, in school, Hanji is the one of the few he can hold proper conversations with. Others are either scared or hate his guts and rebellious attitude.

He breathes heavily, and it sounds like a sigh. "I'll cross the bridge when I get to it."

"Might not even have a bridge by then," she comments laughingly. Then she looks his way. "It's not like you aren't smart or anything. If you put in some effort, I know you can memorize all the formulas he taught today, so it's kind of a waste to flunk it all."

"Complimenting me isn't going to make me want to study, Hanji," he tells her. It's true about what she said. "And you're starting to sound like my mother."

Many teachers— even his own parents— have told him that he is intelligent, clever, smart, all of the synonyms available for one of a higher integrity, and that if he just puts in a bit of an effort, or spend some time studying for the upcoming tests, he could pass. And not just pass, he could ace the tests, or possibly be one of the top students. But instead of doing so, he chooses the flunk them.

He'd rather be doing something else than spending more than ten hours at school and then going to college, getting a job, getting married, have kids — normalcy, it irks him. It can't be all there is.

"Oh come on, I'm not that old," Hanji chuckles lightly, interrupting his thoughts. She then perks up and suggests, "Well, if you're not going to flip burgers, how about eating them? Your parents won't mind you returning home late, right?"

"They will," he admits indifferently, looking straight. "But it hasn't stopped me from doing so."

"Hah — what a bad, _bad_ boy you are," Hanji says, grinning.

The way she emphasizes on the bad makes him feel uncomfortable, honestly.

Levi doesn't know if she intended for it to sound like she was in the middle of a sex scene — one where she'd be stepping on another person's head with her black high heels, her flogger safe in her hands, ready to strike. Although, in his imagination, he can't possibly imagine her as a dominatrix, even as just an experiment, because she's not the type who'd wear those kind of attire.

Still, it makes him want to throw up. He tries to brush that thought away.

"Shut up," he tells her quickly. A little close to threateningly. "And don't ever fucking call me that again. You've no idea how dirty you made it sound."

Hanji crosses her arms. Someone else would be scared by the tone Levi is using, but not her. Although she wouldn't call it being used to Levi's occasional threats and acts of violence, she is in the least unfazed by his glares. "That's only because your mind is dirty."

"At least it's cleaner than yours, you shitty four-eyes."

"Whatever you say," she leans in closer, her breath just inches away from his ear, "shortie."

Hanji immediately receives a fist on her head — and Levi isn't kind enough to his left hand or hold back on his strength. She lets out a little ow and rubs her own head concernedly, although still giggling out loud. It always ends up like this; Levi calls her four-eyes, and she'll fight back by calling him short — it has been like this with them for a while now, but Levi still hits her because he hates getting reminded of his height.

She gives a careful smile.

"All right — all right," Hanji says, as if pacifying him, "you're not short at all. You're as tall as — the Eiffel tower?"

Levi isn't sure if it is sarcasm or her just trying to ease his anger, but he still retorts back offensively. "And you're as annoying as fat old bastard who can't stop talking about his online gaming addiction whenever there is a question relating to computers," he says all in one breath, only a little pissed at Hanji. He fumes.

She knows who he's referring to, since she's in the same class as him for most of it. "Yeah, well, I don't think he's that fat," she later on says.

That person he was referring to is their history teacher — every time they get a question that is somehow related to the internet, gaming or electricity. He can somehow relate everything to his addiction and start telling them about the latest achievement he has, and doesn't stop until a student asks him to continue the lesson. Of course, no one asks him to stop.

Most people dislike him, though.

They then walk the remaining distance in silence after that last bit of conversation, but it isn't uncomfortable for either of them. They are reaching the school gates by now.

A security guard, slightly plump, stands beside the gate to watch for visitors, and sometimes he waves at students going home. The gate isn't opened fully, so cars can't just drive in like that. Whenever a car drives in: if it's a teacher, the security guard automatically lets them in, and if it's a visitor, they'd have to sign and get a visitor's pass from him.

Most of the visitors are worried parents, which is terrible, seeing as most of the people here are capable of taking care of themselves. Levi knows Hanji has been going home by herself since she first started elementary school, and he himself has also done the same. What he dislikes more than anything is people who depend on others even though they can do it themselves.

As he thinks this, they're already out of the school and crossing the street. He takes out his lighter and cigarette packet at the first green light.

 

* * *

 

"You bitch—! You lying, filthy whore!" he bellows, using all the strength in his palm to give her a tight slap. That isn't enough to ease his anger. His eyes are darkened by the high arch of his brows — shadowed; making his expression look more menacing. Ernest breathes angrily, in fast and unstable patterns. "You've been fucking cheating on me with that bastard all along, haven't you? Were you ever going to tell me about it?  _Well!?"_

Brenna holds a shaking hand on her slapped cheek — now blooming into a red pattern on her face, soon to bruise. Her voices shakes, too, but she tries to be firm and less afraid. "So what if I have? You've never cared about this family at all, Ernest! What do you think is so good about yourself that I won't leave for another man? What," here she can't help a falling tear, "do you really think?"

The tear isn't made of sorrow. It tastes like disappointment, or betrayal.

"We have a son together," he says, like it's that one big obvious thing she's not seeing. Like it's important and she doesn't think so. _"A son."_

She nods. Her face is wet and her eyes are burning. "Levi can take care of himself. He's grown — he doesn't need us to be together just so he can grow up as a normal child, have a normal family, that sort of thing. I think he knows, too, that we'll never really be one happy family."

"He's just a kid," Ernest tells her, "the shit does he know?"

Brenna looks at him in disbelief. "This is why you and him don't get along! He's already eighteen but you still treat him like a child, but he's not a child we can chide anymore. He can think for himself," she exhales, "Gods — sometimes, I think he's far more mature than you could ever be."

"This isn't about our son,  _woman,"_  his fists clench tightly. Brenna steps back a little in fear of another strike. "This is about you, being a slutty little bitch, seducing another man and fucking sleeping with him behind my back! What, does he fuck you better or something? I can't satisfy your needy hole?"

"It's not about the sex!" she screams, feeling accused. Brenna doesn't know why she feels the need to explain herself to a man who won't try to understand her feelings. All of what she says and does is all her fault, anyway, so why bother? Maybe the twenty years of marriage, or the guilt shaped like a ring strangling her ring finger.

"What else could it be? Don't tell me it's because you feel something for him," he asks, then laughs when he sees Brenna's expression — which says yes. He mocks her. "Seriously, you're an adult, Brenna — not some childish high school girl thinking the puppy love she feels for another classmate is true love. Wake up and realize just how fucking stupid you sound."

Although she has never wanted to blame her husband for their failing marriage, deep in her heart, she somehow does. "At least he doesn't treat me like possession. Like property. He respects me, unlike you. And more than anything, he cares for me and makes time for me. You don't, Ernest. You don't ever do that."

"We've been married for fucking twenty years. Do you still expect me to do all those disgusting mushy things with you?" Ernest laughs again, his head held high. He aims to ridicule her for her silly idea of love. "This is idiotic. I thought you were cleverer than this — hoping for a romance you know can never happen. He knows you're married with a son, doesn't he?"

Determined, she tells him, "He doesn't mind that."

"Oh... oh, how silly," this time it's a light chuckle. Brenna can hear his vexation. "You shouldn't trust the things men say. We always lie. How would you know he's not just lying to your naive fucking brain?"

"Alphonse is true to me."

The carpet she's stepping on suddenly feels like a body of water. Brenna has willed herself not to be scared of him finding out about her affair; from the first time she kissed Alphonse on that night that Ernest forgot their anniversary, to the last time they last touched each other on the sofa — that ageless love they share. She is sure Levi will understand that she can no longer go on with Ernest.

"Look at you, calling out his name in such an endearing way. Does he promise to take you far away from this place? Or give you roses when he reaches your doorsteps? You like romantic things, so much so that you'd find another man when the romance has run out," his apparent anger has turned into something else — something close to disgust.

It's leaking out of his voice; how naive he thinks she is. How all of this disgusts him.

"Don't make this my fault," she says. Tears collect at the edge of her eyes again. It trembles the same way she does. "Don't."

"It is," he affirms. His voice turns into angry yells. "It is your fucking fault. Or are you saying it is mine? That I made you— chased you away into the arms of another man? That  _I_  did this?"

"Yes," she chokes out. Admission. There isn't much guilt here, not for a long time. "Just ask yourself," a hitch in breath, "how long has it been since you last told me you loved me? Since you kissed me affectionately? Since you held my hands the same way you held my hands when we were at the cathedral?" She watches his reaction, and when he starts to open his mouth, she stops him, says, "Don't answer. You haven't done it for years, and you know that yourself — you don't love me, Ernest, so just let me go."

"No — no, no," he says, hysterically. His eyes are opened widely, and he shakes his head profusely. Then it all stops. His hands slip into his pocket, and his fingers rub softly and tenderly against his handgun — his index finger on the trigger. Safety is still on. She doesn't know he has that, loaded and reachable. "I'm not going to let you go, Brenna. He's not going to have you."

"Stop being so selfish!" Brenna screams at him with her eyes shut, her eyelashes wet with fury. With the desire to go. "Can't you just spare a thought for me, if you've ever loved me?"

"Love is selfish," Ernest tells her. He honestly believes it is.

"No,  _you_  are."

At this point, he is already taking out his handgun— pulling it ever so slowly out of his pockets like he is retrieving something precious, his index finger on the trigger and he pushes the safety off. Brenna stares at him for one second and then her face gets eaten by fear. She backs away with her legs that won't listen to her and properly run, her instincts screaming at her to get away from this danger.

But Ernest is blocking the front door. She knows there is no way out but still there is that little hope inside of her heart that she will make it.

"Maybe I am,  _love,_ " and it is in a disgusting way; the way he says love. He has snapped; madly possessive of her, and he remembers the vows: till death do us part. "Which is why I'm not going to let anyone have you, even if it means plunging a hole in your forehead."

"Don't do it," she tells him, despite knowing it is futile.

"Don't love him, then," he says. Like it is an easy thing. Ernest walks closer to her, half of him wanting to scare her into telling him that she won't love Alphonse anymore, the other part of him slowly succumbing to the urge to pull the trigger.

Brenna grips the necklace on her neck like it is a prayer. It is a simple teardrop-shaped necklace which isn't worth much, but Alphonse gave it to her, and whatever the price of it was, she doesn't mind it. Something given with love in mind is something that should be cherished. Her breathing stills after she closes her eyes, ready for death to take her.

"I won't. I won't stop loving him."

"You'd die for his sake?"

She nods. Slow and without regret. The ending plays out inside her head a few times before it actually happens, but she still doesn't want to tell Ernest what he wants to hear. Not being afraid of death is a lie, she knows this. Everyone is. Even for just one second, that fear will always find a crack to enter your body from. Ernest points the gun at her, gripping it so tightly his hand is trembling in anger. Possessiveness. Desire. She is mine.

Brenna looks at him with her heart on someone else's sleeve. In death, she won't be his. And she never will, she never will be his again — to die for love isn't bad. To die of love is worse.

"Then I'll grant your wish."

He pulls it.

Smoke escapes the barrel afterwards, the whole house's noise becoming like water evaporating instantly. It is silent. To him, it feels holy. He drops the gun on the ground and walks slowly towards his wife. Ernest strokes her face, her bloodied face. The hole is in the middle of her forehead, continuously spilling blood— life— even though he is putting his finger into it.

"We'll soon be together. You're not going anywhere without  _me,_ " he drags the blood on his fingers on her face — smudges it underneath her eyelids, the top of her lips and on her cupid's bow.  _"Mine."_

Fire is a holy death.

 

* * *

 

"So I guess I'll see you on Monday, then," Hanji waves with almost too much energy.

They don't live as close to each other and there is always this junction that separates the roads they will take to go home. It looks like a compass to him. Levi is smoking possibly the fifth cigarette he has smoked for the day, his lips parting to blow out the smoke. His thirst is relinquished.

He nods, acknowledging. "Yeah, see you."

"And don't smoke so much," she says as she crosses the road, and Levi rolls his eyes. Hanji is concerned, as always, talking about lung cancer and his life shortening with each cigarette he finishes. He isn't irritated by her concern, but perhaps a little annoyed. She scares him with talks about his teeth blackening, but hell, he does go to the dentist every half a year.

Levi puts the cigarette to his lips and crosses the other road, not giving much of a thought about her warning.

It takes about ten more minutes to reach his house from the junction at the pace he walks at. Moonlight illuminates the pavement like it is a spotlight on a stage, just much bigger one, then he thinks of a certain quote. His sling bag jumps slightly against his back with each large movement he makes, and after a while, he is done smoking.

He throws the cigarette butt on the ground, extinguishing it with his feet quickly. Levi moves on.

Nonchalantly, he ruffles his hair with his fingers, feeling more than a little exhausted from the lessons today. In this case, he's mentally tired and not physically, but the bad thing about the both of them is that they are interlinked, and whichever tired he feels, he will end up wanting to rest. It influences each other. Levi resists the urge to yawn as he crosses yet another road.

He's just a few buildings away when he starts to see a fire.

It is an enormous one that eats up an entire house, and it is awfully close to his house. That is his initial thought — his neighbor's house getting burnt. But as he gets closer, he realizes it's his house. His and his parents' house. Levi's eyes widened and shook uncontrollably, his legs giving him the sudden strength to run there at the fastest speed he can possibly run at.

With every step closer, he gets certain pangs of fear — thumping loudly beside his heartbeat like a second pulse, and he knows he can't let it take over him. He just can't, because he needs to get there. He runs and runs and doesn't slow down; keeps at it until he's right in front of his burning house. He's there now, but it takes him a few seconds to realize it.

The fire looks like a monster.

Why is it a monster?  _Because,_  he thinks to himself,  _because it takes life. It destroys. It kills._

"Hey — no, you can't go in," a firefighter stops him when he tries to run inside. He pushes him away roughly, continuing to run into the burning building. It is collapsing — everything inside, the door, the shelves, the things that lived with him all his life. He doesn't know how or why he can't stop his body anymore, but it just keeps going.

It drives him into the house like a magnetic force.

He knows they're dead. It is a feeling. If you're in touch with the humans burning inside that house, you'll just know that they're not breathing anymore, so he doesn't know why he wants to go in. Seems like he just lost everything to this ugly monster. Levi finds it hard to believe that his house is burning right now. It feels like he still hasn't woken up.

More firefighters come up to stop him, four of them, trying not to harm him but to keep him away from the house as they work to put out the fire. He exerts all the strength he has left inside his body to shove them.

Let me in, he thinks screamingly to himself. That's his house. His entire life.

Today is just a normal day — it didn't feel odd like something was going to happen, or those omens, twitching eyelids, broken mirrors; nothing to tell him that something will go wrong today, so very awfully wrong. He feels sick to his stomach as he forces his way through, but there is no way he can overpower four men.

"Kid," one of the firefighter— blonde with a beard— says to him, "I know what you're feeling right now, and I know that your body isn't listening to you, but you have to calm down. You'll just get yourself killed if you go in, and nothing good will come out of that."

He is mute now.

Can't force anything out of his throat that is even close to a human sound, or any word, but he does calm down at the firefighter's words. He stops forcing in and slumps on the ground instead, watching the fire like a scene he hates but is forced to watch. Levi doesn't love his parents enough to want to die with them in a fire, but he feels empty in his chest, like someone has stolen something precious and doesn't give it back.

It is bad that he wants to break down, but his body doesn't let him.

In a daze, he sits on the patch of grass in safe area. The firefighter pats him on the shoulder and tells him he'll be all right. Deep down, Levi knows it's just a lie but he doesn't bother exposing it, and that one particular firefighter is looking at him with concern; something the other firefighters aren't doing.

Maybe it reminds him of something, too.

Fire is like — amber. Sunset. Fiery blaze. He thinks of hazelnuts, but it is a bad comparison. He grits his teeth, then bites his lower lip until it bleeds out, and then he hears the police car sirens from behind him. Some of them were talking about something, but he can't hear them because of the sound of the water, the sound of the building collapsing, the sound of his heart wanting to stop beating.

Big, big, burning. Levi doesn't take his eyes off the fire because he can't. It is getting smaller now, the flames getting doused by the firefighters, but it is still messy everywhere. It will end up a burnt and broken thing, and he'll probably not want it anymore. It is too big for him. And he thinks each time he steps inside, he'll be reminded of this night.

The smoke makes it hard for him to breathe.

He thinks ahead, but it hurts to do so. Levi's hands turns into fists as he grips onto the grass all around him, and the ground feels hot. A policeman taps him gently on his shoulder and he forces himself to look in his direction.

"I'll need you to come with me to the police station," he says professionally. There is a police car just further away by the side of the road, and everything is noisy. "We just need you to answer some questions."

Levi gets up, despite unwillingly, because right now he's at lost and doesn't have a proper place to go to. It's all too sudden, but he tries to nod and get up. The policeman leads him to the car and opens the door. Levi gets in; his palm still feeling like something's burning, and he clenches it tightly to try to extinguish a fire that's not there — and it doesn't go.

It's too quiet here, and at the same time, it really isn't.

 

* * *

 

 _Does your father always keep his gun loaded? — How is your relationship with your parents? — Do your parents quarrel often? — How would you describe their marriage? — Has your mother recently been seeing someone?_ They found a gun in the debris after they put out the fire, and without needing to see it, he knows it's his father's pistol. He always keeps it with him. Sometimes Levi thinks he'll shoot his mother and him at the dining table.

That's just the kind of man he is. Possessive and insane. He'd kill himself just to have what is his, and Levi supposes he now has. He's done it, that bastard. The police's investigation is almost over, and Levi hears them talk about murder and suicide, arson and intentional.

Although he doesn't know what exactly happened, he has a slight clue. They're not asking him anymore questions because they've gotten all the information they need, so they tell him that he's free to go. He doesn't leave just yet, and instead stares at the table in front of him. One policewoman glances at him and grasps the situation.

"Do you have a place to stay at?" she asks him nicely, smiling.

"Yeah, I can stay over at a friend's," he tells her, and it's a lie. He won't stay over at anyone's house. "It's not that far from here," he later on adds, because he doesn't want them to try to escort him or give him a place to stay at. He doesn't want anymore to do with the police.

Levi notices how hoarse his voice is now. He gets up from the seat and walks a few steps to the open door, and the policewoman nods at him, nearly in a sympathizing way. There is just something about police stations that gives him a suffocating feeling — maybe it's to do with the law, or authority, or it makes him feel like a criminal.

He's been here once for theft.

At that time it was just an impulse, and smoking didn't do much for him so he needed a new thrill, but he still ended up caught and stayed behind bars for hours until his parents came. He doesn't remember vividly the lecture they gave him, but it sort of stings his heart because this morning, his mother just told him not to smoke so much, and he brushed it off as her being nosy, but that was probably the last time he's ever going to hear her voice.

He puts his hands— each one on each eye, vertically— and lets out a soft groan. It's almost twelve at night, so that means he's been here for hours. Levi's tired, but it's not a physical or mental tiredness anymore, honestly, he doesn't know anything at this moment as he walks the distance to the exit of the police station. As he gets closer, he sees a firefighter.

Levi somewhat recognizes him; the blonde and bearded one. He looks like he's here to talk to him, but it makes no sense, because the investigation is almost over and he has no reason to be here. He stops, though, to listen to what he has to say.

"I thought I'd find you here," The firefighter says, slightly out of breath.

Levi raises a brow. "You're?"

"Mike," he tells him. He breathes heavily. "Look, maybe we should talk outside instead."

Levi looks around and nods, agreeing with him. "Yeah," he just says, and walks out of the police station with Mike. He's curious as to why he came all the way here if his business is not with the police, but the heavy feeling in his chest makes that curiosity numb, too.

After exiting the station, they head towards the park just behind the building and there is a sudden realization that there isn't anywhere he can go, and that he doesn't have anything left — except for his sling bag full of useless textbooks and papers. His clothes were all caught in the fire and the only thing he's wearing now is a plain shirt with a few patterns and just a simple pair of jeans.

He exhales, then asks, "So? What do you want? Shouldn't you be out there putting out fire and that sort of shit?"

"I'm off shift now," Mike answers that first. Then he glances at him from head to toe. "Can I ask you something?"

Impatient, he says, "Just shoot."

"Do you have anywhere to go?"

Firefighters are different. Levi doesn't hold a grudge towards them as much as he does towards police, and Mike doesn't seem like the sort of person who pisses him off, so he decides to tell him the truth instead of lying. "No."

"I thought the police would've at least let you stay at a hotel — you could pay with the insurance."

"The insurance won't pay me shit. That fire was arson, it wasn't some accidental cooking-gone-wrong kind of thing; my father shot my mother and then burnt down the house," he says, more like spits those words out, "and even if the police pays for my accommodation, I wouldn't stay. The police is just — well, long story. Let's just say we won't get along."

Mike nods quietly, even though he wants to ask why that is. He doesn't ask Levi, though, because his main motive isn't to ask him bits and pieces about his life. When he saw him running into that fire, he was reminded of himself — the same thing happened, even though his wasn't arson, but he remembers doing the same thing this boy did. And because of that, he just can't leave him alone.

"Where are you going to stay, then?"

They reach a bench later on and Levi sits down, the glow from the streetlight illuminating the road below it. Levi rests both his arms on the back of the bench and stares somewhere, at the sky, or the vending machine just opposite him. "Don't know. Maybe I'll sleep here for the night."

He feels like shit. There is a sort of sadness that is calm but it is still an ocean— inexhaustible— inside of him, and it stills. It reaches a point where he knows crying or screaming wouldn't help anyway, so he doesn't. He saves his energy for surviving each day, because he needs it now. He has no money, and he doesn't know the bank number or anything.

His parents never tell him money-related things. He can't possibly still finish school if he can't even feed himself three square meals, so maybe he'll quit school right now and find a job. Maybe it's for the best — he isn't interested in studying, anyway.

"Here? The park?" Mike asks, surprised. "No, you really don't want to do that. People get robbed often in this park, from what I've heard, and you can't do this long-term."

"There's nothing for them to rob even if they wanted to," he says bitterly, remembering his wallet that still has a few dollars, perhaps. "And it's not like I can't fight them off."

"Still, it isn't right for a person your age to sleep at a park."

"What is it to you if I stay anywhere, anyway? You're not my fucking aunt," Levi yells at him, even though he doesn't mean to. It just came out that way, but he doesn't apologize. It isn't his fault that Mike was pestering him and asking him questions about where he's going to stay. It doesn't even matter what age he is — he knows he can fight anyone who tries to harm him.

Mike looks at him in a way that he knows is sympathy, or pity. His eyes fall on his feet. "My parents — they died almost the same way. It was an accidental fire, but like you, I came back to a burning house and lost everything in one night. I'm not feeling sorry for you without no good reason at all. It's just that I've been through the same thing and there were people by my side when that happened," he tells him. "I'm saying you don't necessarily have to be alone on this."

Levi doesn't know whether to start fake-pitying him or anything, but it doesn't seem like Mike needs it. It's good that Mike has people to help him, but what's that got to do with him?

It sounds like he is implying something. "Are you suggesting something?"

"I could give you a place to stay at for the moment," Mike says, genuinely concerned. "I have a friend who just moved here because of his work and he lives close. He'd be fine with you staying there temporarily. You go to that nearby school, right?" Levi nods vaguely. "It'd be convenient for you."

"Why should I listen to you?"

"I'm not forcing you to go anywhere," he explains. "I'm giving you a suggestion. A way out of this mess. I won't drag you and put you inside a house you don't want to live in, but it's the best option you have other than sleeping at the park."

Levi could go to to Hanji's place, but she lives with her parents like everyone else does, too, so it'd be inconvenient and he doesn't want to see her every day anymore than he already has to. He is considering Mike's offer, but he doesn't actually know the friend he's referring to. It could be an old pervert wanting to take advantage of teenagers in their sleep — he wouldn't know.

"I don't know your friend, whoever he is. He might be some sort of a pervert for all you know."

Mike chuckles lightly. "He's nothing like that. I've known him since high school and he's a good man. I assure you he won't try to do anything against your will, if that's what bothers you."

"And he's okay with letting a complete stranger stay at his place?"

Levi's voice is hinted with disbelief. Are all of Mike's friends saints or something?

"Well," he thinks about it, his finger on his lip, "he's pretty lonely."

"What, I'm supposed to cure him of his loneliness?"

"Nothing like that," Mike says politely. "At least if you live with him, you don't have to worry about three meals and you can continue studying. Because the way I see it, you were going to quit school and find a job," and Levi nods at that. He was going to do that. "You're still young, so you should study while you still can and find a job only when you're ready."

"Aren't you the good Samaritan — offering someone you've never met before a place to live at," it sounds like a mockery more than anything. Levi isn't sure of his own mood right now. "I'm not exactly a good person, if you're giving me this whole pity thing thinking I'm one."

Mike smiles at him. "You're not that bad."

He sounds truthful enough.

"Who's your friend?" Levi asks, deciding to give him a chance after all.

He can leave if he doesn't get along with that friend of his, or if he makes him uncomfortable, anyway. Mike is right; this is his best option, whether he liked it or not. The other thing is because Mike came all the way here just to help him, and even though he wants to reject him, he has nowhere to go. Now that he looks at it, the park is too dirty for him to sleep at.

"His name is Erwin," he tells him, taking out his phone from his pocket. Mike is quick because he knows Levi's the sort of person who's most likely to change his decision in just a few minutes. "I'll call him here, all right? It shouldn't take him too long."

"Yeah," Levi mutters indifferently. "All right."

He wonders what he's getting into.

 

* * *

 

Levi can't tell the time, but he supposes it's around twenty minutes when the Mike's friend, Erwin, reaches the park with his car.

From afar, he looks tall— well, far taller than he is— and blonde. He wonders what's up with all these blondes, and then when he walks closer; his silhouette turning into an actual image, Levi starts to see his face. Erwin is dressed in a loose black v-necked shirt and jeans. His blue eyes glisten a little as the streetlights shine on them — and Levi forgets to breathe.

He's hot, Levi thinks to himself. Definitely not what he was expecting when Mike gave him this offer. Levi then realizes they must be as close as he says they are, since it's nearly 1AM and he's still makes an effort to drive here just because he asks him to.

"Hey, Mike," Erwin says smiling. Then he looks at Levi. "Is this him?"

"Yeah," Mike tells him, getting up from the bench. "He's — oh. I still don't know your name, kid," he glances at Levi as if asking for his name, and Levi hates that he's calling him a kid. Just because he's around ten years older shouldn't mean he can call him a kid, but to his defense, Mike didn't know Levi hated being called that, so he decides to let it go.

"It's Levi."

"Levi," Mike repeats his name slowly, like a thought or realization. Funny that he's spoken to him for a while and still didn't know his name until now. "You'll stay with Erwin for a while, but if you don't want to anymore, you can just leave. It's not compulsory that you stay," he reminds him, because he doesn't want the boy to think that he's being forced to stay at Erwin's house.

"I know, you said that shit a few times already," Levi says, and then gets up as well. His bag is still slung around his body and he grips the handle tightly because it's the only thing he has left. He stares at Erwin for a while, and in return, he gets a smile. It's surprisingly silent here — accompanied by the sound of crickets and occasional bicycle noises.

Levi doesn't smile back. It's kind of hard to.

"I'll leave him in your good hands, then," Mike tells Erwin. He grins as though he's done something he's proud of, something good. And then he gestures for Erwin to come closer, telling him something in secrecy that Levi can't hear. "Look after him, all right? He's just lost both his parents in one night and I know he seems surprisingly calm, but I'm afraid he might — you know — start breaking down."

Erwin nods understandingly. "I will," he says. A gentle voice. "Don't worry, it'll be fine."

"Right," Mike gives him a pat on the back and looks at Levi, not sure if he should also give him a pat on the back. He thinks to himself that he isn't as close to him, and he fears Levi might not like it, so he just says, "You'll be all right."

He sounds like he's sure of it, like Levi will definitely be all right. Oh, but he knows that's a lie. A horrible lie that adults tell kids because they don't want to take away the little bit of hope left in their world. Too bad he's known this for a long time already, so there isn't a need to hear him say such sad lies. Yet it feels like he needs to act like he believes him.

In the end, all he gives him is just one nod.

Mike has probably told Erwin everything he needed to know about him, as much as he knew about him from the few minutes he's talked to him. Erwin is gentle, Levi keeps thinking that. He wonders why he keeps saying that inside his head.

"Let's go," Erwin says to Levi, distracting his thoughts, and he walks towards his car.

Levi follows him at the same pace — follows that voice accompanied with those blue eyes. He starts to think that this isn't so bad, after all. It beats sleeping at this dirty park. Mike stays there for a few minutes, sighing in relief that he's succeeded in making Levi take his help, and he silently watches them both.

Their footsteps match. Almost.

 

* * *

 

He's with him in the car now. Erwin is just beside him, his hand on the steering wheel. One thing he notices about him is that whenever it's a red light, he rests his left hand on his thighs but leaves his right on the wheel, but he supposes it's a driver's habit. Another thing is that his car is clean and smells of something nice, like roses, flowers, but it doesn't make him want to sneeze.

Levi doesn't know what to say, or do, because he's just met Erwin and now he's about to live at his place. He's doing this because Mike asked him to, but still, maybe he shouldn't have said yes so quickly.

He keeps thinking of that fire. It'll never leave him alone, it's just there, there, and there, everywhere inside his head — everywhere that is a pitch black, the fire will rise, and it will eat him up. Levi breathes heavily. The thought of his parents' bodies and his house on fire makes him wish it's all just a dream, but he knows it isn't. Has to stop lying to himself at this point.

Breathe properly, he screams at himself inside his head.

Then suddenly there's a hand on his head. It surprises him, but he turns to look at Erwin who was smiling at him right now. It's not a polite smile, or a smile he has given; it's a smile that grounds him. Makes him feel like he's all right again. Or at least it feels like that, for just a few seconds, and then he finds it hard to be okay again.

Erwin ruffles his hair, and Levi's just about to tell him to stop doing that when he says, "Don't think too much."

"I'm not a kid," he feels the need to say.

"Am I treating you like one?" Erwin asks, curiosity evident in his voice. It seems that he really doesn't know he's doing that, so it may not be a conscious effort, but more of a habit.

"Yeah, you are. I don't like that. I know your friend told you what happened — the fire, my dead parents, and you may think I'm a poor, broken shit you need to comfort and lend a shoulder to, but it's not like that," he tells him, not keen on making eye contact. "I'm not fine, but I don't know you that well, so just..." he trails off, not knowing what to continue it with.

"You want me to treat you like a normal person, is that it?"

Levi nods — it's exactly the words he can't find.

"I can try," Erwin says. Levi wonders if he's even capable of it.

He then shifts in his seat, feeling quite uncomfortable as Erwin drives. Levi feels homesick for a home he doesn't have anymore, and every time he thinks of comfort, he thinks of home, and every time he does that, he's reminded of the fire, so he needs to try to distract himself. He turns to Erwin, glancing at him with interest. "Do you do this often?"

"Do what?"

"Let strangers stay at your house just because your friend asked you to," Levi elaborates, clearer this time. Part of him is also curious.

"No, not really," he tells him. Erwin's tone has changed from a sympathizing one to a normal one. Levi thinks he's trying his best to treat him normally, like he asked him to. "It's the first time Mike asked me for such a favor. I suppose it's got to do with your situation. Something similar happened to him in the past, so he must have felt the need to help you."

"Yeah, he told me," Levi says. Mike also mentioned some friends that helped him through it, so Levi starts to wonder if Erwin was also one of them. "Were you there for him when it happened?"

"I was," Erwin admits. "For a few months, he was a broken shell of who he was — and it was devastating to watch, honestly, but we were all there for him. He got better eventually, and after he graduated, he decided he'd be a firefighter."

"Doesn't the thought of fire scare him?"

Erwin shakes his head. "It actually gives him strength. He's once told me that even though he couldn't save his parents, at least he can save others," he pauses to breathe. "Mike feels like he has to do something for you because your parents were beyond saving the moment they got there. He's loyal to his principles, which is why he's helping you."

"Did he tell you that it was arson?" Levi asks, because Mike's principles has nothing to do with arson, murder and suicide — no matter what he tried, there's no way he could have saved them.

Erwin does know, so he nods and adds on, "I know. Your father shot his wife."

"He did," he says softly, "he did."

Realization, again, stings.

He stays in silence for a while, and Erwin doesn't say anything either after he takes a glance at him.

It's not easy to talk about this, and Levi wonders why he's turning the topic back to his dead parents again. In his mind, he's taking a silver shovel and burying those thoughts deep inside the bed of his head, putting objects over it, large ones — because he needs to quickly get over it.

Erwin wants to say something to comfort him, something small along the lines of it'd be fine, or everything will be okay, but somewhere inside him, he knows Levi won't believe him. And he's already told him to treat him like he would any other normal person, so he takes his hovering hand back to the steering wheel. This boy is something, Erwin thinks to himself.

The road is slightly uneven when it gets to this part— which means they're close to his house by now— and Erwin can hear Levi's breathing over the music that's playing. It sounds broken.


	2. Counting stars

There isn't anything special about Erwin's house, but it is bare, new, and almost untouched.

It feels like there aren't many things he bought with him to a new place. He knows for a thing that people who do this are usually trying to forget something of their own fault or something heartbreaking like a loss. Levi takes off his shoes and puts them on shoe rack, looking around at the place he's now going to temporarily stay at.

It's smaller than his own, and he thinks this is better — a house too big will only suffocate him with silence and emptiness— and there'd be too much floors to clean, too much of the surface he won't ever touch with his feet again— but a small house is different. A small house with another person's presence will give him some comfort in the least.

He hates feeling too cold on the inside.

Erwin casually puts his keys on the top of the shoe rack and walks in, telling him, "Make yourself at home, then."

Levi nods, his mouth not wanting to open and talk anymore. It's been a long day. But he doesn't want to give too much silence to the man who's giving him a place to live at temporarily, so as he puts his sling bag down on the beige-colored couch, he asks without looking, "How long have you been living here?"

"Not too long," he tells him, some sort of melancholic feeling in his voice. "I moved here a week ago, so the house is still rather new. I hope you don't mind that some parts of it is still dirty."

Levi minds, but doesn't say anything. He looks at the ground with a disgusted look and wonders if the dirt is already on his feet, and he calms himself with the thought that at least it's still better than the park. But it bothers him quite a lot. And Erwin — he's quite the mystery. Moved here a week ago, doesn't bring much belongings, and is completely fine with letting a stranger stay at his place — that's not what a normal adult does.

"Did something happen?" Levi asks, sitting on the couch. It's quite comfortable, and he hasn't gotten a good rest since all of that chaos happened, so he lets himself sink into the softness of it and also closes his eyes. He hopes to himself he won't see the fire when he does.

Erwin glances at the boy. "Are you interested in knowing?"

"No," he answers truthfully. "Not really."

"Then why ask?"

"No reason," Levi says, but he can't deny the fact that he does want to know more about this man because he honestly doesn't know a single thing about him except for the fact that he's good friends with Mike.

And Erwin watches him for a while with the feeling in chest wanting to feel sorry for this boy, but remembers that he's told him not to do that, and that only makes him feel sorrier for him. Levi deals with his situation different from Mike, and Erwin just wonders when he's going to snap and start to cry, but it also seems unlikely. When Mike lost his parents, he moved into his relative's house but didn't respond to anything for a long time.

Levi is behaving like nothing has happened, and this part is scary— edging on suspense— because Erwin doesn't know what will happen, so he tries to talk to him and make conversation to make sure Levi doesn't start over thinking in the silence.

He goes over to the boy and asks, "Do you have any relatives?"

Levi shakes his head apathetically. "We don't stay in touch and I don't even remember any of their names or faces," he tells him, meddling with the handle of his sling bag, and then he stops doing that for a moment. "What, planning on chasing me out so soon?"

"No, I just thought it'd be better for you if there are familiar faces by your side." The best way to deal with a tragic accident would be to have the comfort of people he knows, because Mike and him are like complete strangers that he's only met in less than a day, and Erwin wonders this affects anything; or what this boy needs at the moment.

Levi looks away. "That's what you think."

"Am I wrong?" Erwin asks.

The boy doesn't know if Erwin's wrong or not, but at this moment, he doesn't want to see somebody that he knows.

Neither Erwin or Mike knows what his parents look like, what they were, how their voices sounded, so there is a detached feeling from not knowing. The face of his parents inside his own head and inside their heads— imagined— are different, and that is something that helps. If he sees someone familiar, someone who has talked to his parents before, he'll be reminded of them and the sorrow he feels will have a reason for it.

That reason turns sadness into a fire, the same fire, so it's better that he looks for comfort in strangers. It's better that the sorrow he feels comes from an unknown source — and he tries, he does, to bury the dead.

"You don't know me," Levi mutters rhetorically.

"I don't," Erwin tells him honestly. "I really don't. And I'm not going to pretend that I do, but I'll try to."

The boy looks at him confusedly, not knowing what he means by try — or why he's saying that. Erwin's hands grips the arms of the couch and exhales heavily, and it's this one time— like he never has before— that he properly looks into Levi's eyes. Levi doesn't look away from him, but he thinks about doing so. He waits for Erwin to finish up his sentence.

"Understanding you, I mean."

Levi resists his urge to tilt his head. "Why do that?"

"We're going to be seeing each other often," he explains. "It'd do us both good if I know at least a bit about you — your likes and dislikes, things like that."

"Well," Levi says, getting up. Even though Erwin interests him and he doesn't have a cell in him that dislikes him because he hasn't done anything yet, he doesn't want to tell him about himself right now. His mouth is barely moving or listening to him, but he makes it move. "I'm not in the mood for a sharing session, really, but I think Mike is right about you."

Erwin turns to look at him. "Right about what?"

"You are pretty lonely."

The way he says it makes it out to sound like it's not a bad thing. Erwin doesn't understand which of his actions made Levi think this, but there is just something about his tone. It feels like similarity. Familiarity. He must have felt the same way, at some point of his life. Levi doesn't wait for Erwin to form an answer this time, and walks all the way to what he thinks is the bathroom.

"Is that so," Erwin mutters, lower than a whisper. He thinks, at this point, it's already the end of the conversation.

Levi nods without looking at Erwin— although what he said was soft to the extent he couldn't make out what it was, but it probably wasn't anything important, anyway— and instead turns to look down at his own clothes with disgust.

Without having smelled them yet, he already knows what they reek of. The smoke from the fire. As much as he wants them gone, the only clothes he has now are what he's currently wearing, and the nearest person he can ask clothes from is Erwin, although he looks a few sizes bigger than him. He still has to ask him, unfortunately. There isn't much of a choice.

"I don't really want to ask, but," he starts to say reluctantly, "do you have any clothes that'll fit?"

Of course, there's no way Erwin will have clothes like that unless he has a smaller brother or something, which is why he knows it's useless to ask. He'll have to take the smallest ones he has— whatever small is to that man. Erwin finds it hard to contain his amusement and heads towards him.

"I have some," Erwin says, trying not to put his amusement in his tone so he won't sound like he's making fun of his size.

He opens the door to his bedroom just opposite the bathroom and throws out some of the clothes from inside his closet onto the bed, picking the smaller ones he has that'll at least fit a little; and he comes out of his room with three shirts and free-sized pants in his arms. "They won't fit exactly, but they'll have to do for now. We can go and buy more clothes of your size tomorrow."

Levi takes the clothes, and then breathes. "We can't."

"Why not?"

"I don't have a single cent on me," he says bitterly. It all turned into dust.

Erwin hears the unspoken words behind Levi's sentence, but he tries to smile — for him, not at him. Moods are easily influenced, even though in Levi's case, it'd take a while, but he has to try to look happy enough so it'd be pleasant enough for Levi to stay here. He's a good kid, Erwin thinks to himself, because he knows the thought of him paying for him has never crossed his mind.

Fondly, he tells him, "You don't have to pay."

Levi immediately knows what he's implying. His mind rejects that idea completely. It feels like Erwin's feeling sorry for him— doing this out of pity. "No," so he instantly says.

"No?" Erwin repeats, curious about why.

"I might not even stay here for long," Levi tells him quietly, as if deep in thought. His eyes wander but they don't fall on Erwin's face. "Don't waste your money on me just because you pity me."

"I'm not pitying you."

"Then what is this? What is — what you're doing?"

"Taking care of you?" Erwin says, and it sounds like a question of an obvious thing. As much as he's afraid that what he said was the wrong thing, it quickly fades when he observes the boy's expressions. It goes from resistance and rejection to acceptance. It doesn't take much to convince him, he supposes, because the only thing Levi doesn't want is for him to take pity or feel sorry for his situation. Anything else is fine.

Levi holds the clothes tighter. "Fine," he turns the doorknob. "Don't blame me if your wallet gets thinner."

If this is a movie, there'd be a part there— just half a second of it— that Levi smiles in. A small smile, but he can't place it under gratefulness or any feeling, so he supposes it's Erwin's face that makes him want to do smile, or be nicer. What a horrible feeling.

"You can pay me back in the future if it still makes you feel guilty."

It hardly is even guilt. Levi doesn't feel guilty for doing anything because he knows the consequences of what he does, and even if he does something he regrets, or hurts people, he rarely feels guilty. It's closer to apologetic, but he doesn't think he'd feel bad for making Erwin pay for his clothes. It's a nice gesture, though Levi's not going to pay him back.

With half his body in the bathroom, he tells him, "That's not gonna happen."

Levi then closes the door and locks it after a few seconds of meddling with it.

Erwin stands outside for a moment, hiding his smile behind the palm of his hand, and thinks to himself he'll never get his money back for whatever he spends on this boy, but it certainly doesn't feel like a stab to the guts. Levi is not a charity case. What he feels towards him is nothing close to that, but he can't put a finger on it.

After a while, the sound of the water hitting the tub is heard, and Erwin goes inside his room to change into thinner clothes. It's been a while since his apartment started feeling like the warmth of someone else.

 

* * *

 

Erwin's clothes don't fit Levi and would only fit if there was one more of him. The shirt he's wearing goes all the way to his thighs and he has to fold them a little, but they keep coming down anyway, so he gives up; irritated and tired. He sits on the couch with his hair still damp because he doesn't feel like sleeping yet— can't sleep, more like— and watches television and keeps the volume to a minimum.

"Not sleeping?" Erwin asks as he drags something big into his room.

Levi sees that it's a single-sized mattress. His eyes glance the clock. It's already two-thirty in the morning. Tiredly, he still turns to meet Erwin's eyes as he gets closer. "You can sleep if you want to," Levi tells him. He can tell that Erwin is tired, too. "I'm not going to — not now, anyway."

Erwin looks at him understandingly. It's not like anyone can sleep after something like that has happened to them. "I'll leave the door open, so you can just come in whenever you want to."

"You want me to sleep in the same room as you?"

He feels as though he's some criminal that Erwin needs to watch over so that he doesn't commit any crimes. For a moment there, the way he looks at Erwin spells of accuse and mistrust. There's another room just beside Erwin's— there's no good reason for him to sleep near him.

"I still haven't had the time to clean the other room since I don't plan on using it soon," Erwin explains, and relief drops on Levi like a flood. "And I didn't think you'd want to be surrounded by dust as you sleep."

The first time Erwin mentions that the apartment is dirty, Levi made an unmistakably disgusted look, and Erwin does observe him enough to know he hates filthiness. Levi hasn't realized the little things this man can infer from small actions. It somehow gives him a better impression of Erwin— because he could have just let him sleep in that dust-filled room instead of dragging something heavy across to the other room.

"You're kind of considerate," Levi tells him. But he realizes he says it like it's a bad thing, so he adds on, "It's nice."

Erwin nods, acknowledging. He wants to say something in return but the boy is looking at his phone now, and anything he say will just be the same as a nod. He walks back to his bedroom seconds after, an unspoken something heavy on his heart.

As he steps into his room, he thinks he knows what Levi's trying to say.

 

* * *

 

When he turns his phone's screen on, it's been spammed by twenty-three phone calls and forty-eight messages, all of which are from Hanji about a few hours ago. He drags his finger across the screen and reads the first one.

It goes:  _"ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?"_

And when he reads the other ones, he realizes all of them say the same thing. He can't blame her for worrying, because if it was her house that caught fire, he'd be slightly worried, too— but not to the extent of sending forty-eight messages of the exact same thing. Sighing, he texts back:  _"Yes, Zoe, I'm all right."_

Almost immediately, the screen comes on and shows a new message:  _"NO, I MEAN, ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?"_

 _"What do you mean?"_  He keys in.

She types:  _"YOUR STATE OF MIND. ARE YOU FREAKING OUT? DO YOU NEED A SHOULDER TO CRY ON? YOU SHOULD COME TO ME. WAIT, WHERE ARE YOU STAYING AT NOW?"_

Honestly, the capitalization is hurting his eyes and he wishes Hanji would use proper punctuation. It's hard to read it like this when his inner-voice is practically screaming at him. He tells her: _"Stop overreacting. I'm fine, staying at"_ — here, his fingers pause for a moment to think. What is Erwin to him? He finds it unfitting to call him a friend when he's just met him, and he doesn't know what he is to him—  _"someone's apartment."_

_"WHO IS SOMEONE?"_

Levi shuts his eyes briefly.  _"Type properly."_

_"Fine, fine. So who is that someone? I mean, you don't really have any friends except for me. No offence, though."_

If he tells her, she'll start asking more questions about it and he'll never be able to get any rest, but if he doesn't, she'll also spam him with more messages. So he decides this will be the last message before the turns off his phone and leave it far away from him. _"It's just some blond guy."_

He then flings his phone to the other side of the couch and walks off, knowing he'll receive more messages tomorrow.

He sees that Erwin isn't asleep yet and is currently using his laptop, so he wonders if he's causing him to sleep late. Perhaps he is the reason why, but he's too tired— this time, emotionally— to care. He heads towards the balcony and opens the transparent door leading to it. Boy, he really wants to smoke. Needs, maybe.

 

* * *

 

Levi blows the smoke out of his mouth as the small glow of his cigarette dances like fireflies in the dark background of the night.  _I can't count the stars tonight,_ he thinks to himself, _or not ever again. And the moon is running away_. A pause.  _It is okay._

From the corner of his eye, he notices that Erwin is beside him, and it's hard to see his face in this light. He turns to look at him with his cigarette between two fingers, as if protective of it. "If you're going to give me the lecture about how smoking is bad, save it. I've already heard it a hundred times and I'm still not quitting."

Erwin doesn't do that and he didn't come here with the intention of doing so. "I just wanted to keep you company."

It's a nicer way of saying he doesn't want him to do anything stupid, and Levi knows this from his tone. He's doing this solely because Mike asked him to, and whatever he whispered in his ear was probably to look after him closely so he doesn't try to kill himself. "This is the first floor," he says mockingly. "I wouldn't even be able to break my ankle if I jumped."

"I know, you're not that stupid. I didn't have any other meaning when I said that."

And Levi somehow believes his words.

He brings his cigarette to his mouth again— blows out the smoke. Erwin rests both his arms on the railing of the balcony and Levi does the same. The smoke is a different color from a fire's. The hand holding the cigarette stretches to the edge and he feels half alive, and he says, "I wasn't that close to them from the start, but I feel this dull ache in my body like a pain someone has been trying to put inside me for a very long time."

He then adds on, "It feels like someone has stolen a part of me I didn't know existed."

"That someone would be death," Erwin says plainly. He's not looking at him. When he says this, it sounds like he's telling himself. Like a monologue that's broken. "That's what it does. It steals from you."

Levi takes a glance at him. He doesn't need to ask to know. "Have you lost somebody?"

"Yes," he admits. "Quite recently."

"How did you feel?"

"Nothing," Erwin tells him. Because it is scary to turn one person into entire worlds. When they passed away, he'd lost all parts of himself. It burnt with their body. Salt and ashes. One entire ocean. "I felt empty. Devoid of myself."

It isn't what he originally intended, but he's interested enough to learn about Erwin's pain. He wants to compare, he thinks, the different kind of pain there is in this world depending on what that person meant to you. "Who was it?"

Erwin looks at him as though hesitating to say, but he does, anyway. "My mother."

Oh, Levi thinks. Moments before he said that, he already knew it'd be someone dear, like a family member or a lover. There wasn't anything Erwin said that gave it away, but it feels like that to the boy — certain words, certain pauses. The way his eyes still hide themselves from light because they're scared of being seen crying. It is a habit. Erwin tries to seem indifferent to this, but he isn't.

"She was fine just a day before she died, and then when she got up in the morning, she fell and hit her head," Erwin continues saying. There is a lump in his throat he can't cough out. "After that, she went into a coma for a few days and died in the hospital. I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye."

It's a normal death. Not cancer, like stages and you just know it'll eat and kill you or you win the battle and kill it instead. Falling out of bed, hitting her head — no one would have expected this to happen, which is why no one would have been able to say their last words to her. Goodbyes are important. They mark the end of something. For him to feel a loss that isn't complete and still stitched with regrets is a loss that is far more painful than anything else.

Levi doesn't have anything to say to be of comfort, and he can't relate to a loss that's not his.

He does wonder if Erwin feels guilty in a way he shouldn't, but even if Erwin does, he wouldn't understand the concept of this. For him, there is no missing or regret — he just feels empty when his own parents died, but he wouldn't go so far to say he misses them because when they were alive, he didn't like them as much anyway. To say he misses them would be a horrible lie.

It's considered deceiving himself, not just them. Ghosts know more than humans, so they must know, too. The thing about parents is that they'll most likely die before you, but the other way round hurts just as bad.

"You must miss her a lot," he comments after thinking what he should say as he extinguishes his cigarette on the underside of the railing. His voice is apathetic.

"I do," Erwin tells him. "I just — want to say goodbye, you know?"

Levi doesn't know, but he nods, anyway.

What else can he give to a man who misses his mother— the woman who raised him and made him the man he is today? Part of him still wants tell him to suck it up and move on because all the living must die one day.

It's depressing to see a man his age to sulk and frown and get sad like a normal human being, like those in the television series he's seen. But he decides to let it go. He doesn't want to say anything about what he doesn't understand, and this man is a sentimentalist— he needs perhaps a few months to get over a regret and a loss. This house still hasn't felt like a home for him yet, and it'll soon settle in, but it takes time. Everything needs time.

"Cheer up," Levi offers apathetically, even though he doesn't mean it at all. He'll just lie and give fake comfort to him until he stops acting like this. Like a human. Levi wonders about what he wants this man to be, and he can't figure it out either.

He leaves, but Erwin doesn't until a few moments later.

 

* * *

 

The cigarette Levi finishes is the last one. He goes to the bedroom and sleeps on the mattress. It's on the floor and Erwin's sleeping on a proper bed, but he can't be too fussy. Levi won't sleep next to a stranger on the same bed, not one he just met.

There's a casement window above him so there's still a bit of moonlight entering. It's not completely dark. The room, like the rest of the house, is bare— not even one photograph. He either wanted to start a new life in a new city or because he physically, mentally can't stay inside that house anymore.

"Is that why you moved?" Levi says silently to the figure above him, not sure if he's asleep. He's curious for some reason. "To start anew?"

Erwin doesn't respond until a few seconds later. "That's what I tell myself," he says, his voice is hoarse and it sounds like he's half-dead. Maybe he is. "But I just couldn't stay in that house anymore. I lived together with her from since I learnt how to walk, and whenever I'm in the house after she passed away, the air stills and everything's in slow motion. I keep trying to say goodbye to her, to thank her for raising me, but I can't get it right."

He adds on, "It's because I don't think she can hear me. It feels detached. Being in that house made me feel strangled."

There's a pause here where neither of them knows what to say.

Levi shifts in his bed. "I think she can," he tells him. His voice is low. His mouth blabbers on about things he doesn't believe in. "I think she knows what you've been trying to do."

Erwin is smiling. Levi can't see it exactly, but he knows he is wearing a smile. "Do you believe in the afterlife?"

"I don't," the boy utters. It's an immediate answer. "And I don't care about what happens when a person dies — whether they go to hell, heaven or just sink back into the Earth, it doesn't matter. It'll happen to everyone eventually, so there's no point worrying about it now."

"You know," Erwin tugs a few strands of hair behind his ear nonchalantly with the palm of his hand, getting them out of his eyes. "You don't talk like a normal teenager. Not at all."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"It depends on what you feel about it," he says. There's a poem inside his head. "In 1742, Thomas Gray wrote in his poem 'Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College' that ignorance is bliss. The era we're in isn't much of a factor. When you know too much, you start thinking in a different way from others, and you get isolated. You'll feel—"

"—like a freak?" Levi interrupts, assuming. He doesn't comment on Erwin's evidently vast knowledge on literature, because he does look like the type to be educated on such things. It doesn't surprise him.

Nothing he says surprises him, actually, except for the part where he talked about his dead mother. Levi thinks he doesn't seem a person who has just lost somebody.

Erwin corrects him— covers the word freak in a nicer-sounding synonym. "Eccentric."

"Don't sugarcoat your words."

"All right," Erwin tells him. "A freak, then."

Erwin doesn't know how many times he's heard people call him that— as a joke, or whether they really mean it. Since young, it's always been this way, and along the way, he starts viewing it as a compliment, maybe. It means he's different from others, that normalcy. Ordinariness isn't a word that fits in his body, and it'll always repel. Sometimes he does look in the mirror and know he isn't the same, doesn't make normal conversations, but he thinks to himself,  _this is me. I am I was I will I will always always be this way._

It stops feeling like a bad thing.

Levi's eyes wander to the man's body. "Do you feel like that, sometimes?"

"Yes," he says.  _Yes._

"Me too."

And Erwin starts to know that the reason Levi's asking about his life is because it's a distraction. Levi still feels the pain of his parents' death— despite their closeness, pain will always be there— and so he rather talks about someone else's pain than his. It's a selfish thing, but he knows he can't help it. Everyone wants to forget about the things that damage them, but they can't forget the pain of it.

When his eyes fall on that boy's face, he can see the words,  _Tell me about a pain that isn't mine._

"I'll buy some more for you tomorrow," Erwin says. A change of topic.

"What?"

"Cigarettes."

"You don't need to," Levi tells him firmly. It's more of a lie. He doesn't want Erwin to give him more things than he needs, because he's scared. Scared of getting too attached to him. Scared of falling in too deep. He repeats one of the lines Hanji has told him before, but he speaks like reading out of a textbook. "I can try to quit smoking. That shit will kill my lungs, anyway."

Erwin breathes out heavily. "I don't think you can, Levi."

 _Levi._  That's the first time he's said his name. And Levi thinks it's one horrible thing to say because he's going to associate it with  _I don't think you can_ , and the next few times he says it, he might be reminded of this. But he's right, despite his cruelty. He can't quit smoking. He can't breathe without those little things— those slow murdering sticks.

"Fuck off," he tosses his body in the other direction, and mutters with his mouth half covered by the pillow,  _"Erwin."_

_I can. I can._

He then hears a soft chuckle from the man.

Physically, Erwin doesn't feel so alone now. Mentally— emotionally, too. He starts to feel that this boy is going to turn his life around and leave it hanging like that, with his head on the ground, or inside the water, and he's going to kill him so badly he won't want to live again. He feels the process of ruining already happening, because it's not the first time someone has told him that he also feels like a freak sometimes, but Levi is the first one— the first ever— who means every word of me too.

A shared solitude.  _We'll burn together someday._

* * *

 

In a field in a town he doesn't know the name of, the fire is a snake that chases him and sets ablaze the ground it gets to. His shoes are gone. The skin covering his Achilles tendon is slightly burnt and scrapped, and he continues running for a while to reach a familiar building— his house, still unbroken, still whole— and he knocks on its doors quickly. Then he looks down on his palms and notices he has the key.

He fits it in the lock and pushes the doors open.

His mother's face is the first face he sees— still smiling— then her face melts like liquid and blood into his father's. As they merge into a monster, it smells of gunfire and arson and murder and murder and murder. His blood rages against his wrist. Ernest heads towards him with a gun in his hands, and Levi tries to run out but the door is already locked.

When he tries the key again, it doesn't fit. It doesn't. He's locked in.

Ernest smiles manically and bursts into flames, causing the carpets to catch fire, and the rest of it, the house, turns into a blackened mess. A battlefield written in his pulse. Levi lets out a scream but it has no voice, and by then, his feet are already on fire— it's a stinging pain, like a knife is removing his skin slowly. It travels like a rope all the way to his thighs, his stomach, chest, heart and neck.

There it is again, that smoke, that suffocating pattern. It strangles him, and he can't do anything but watch his body burn, his whole house burn down over and over again. He doesn't have hands or legs or a heart anymore, he has nothing, just one consciousness.

And then he wakes.

He immediately sits up in a horrified, deranged gasp and finds himself in another person's bedroom. Erwin's. For now, he can't breathe from his nose so he breathes out from his mouth, panting in his cold sweat. Levi touches his hands and legs to find that they're still there. He's relieved, but it still feels like it's burning him.

Looking up, he sees that Erwin is still asleep and wasn't woken from his nightmares, so he gets up quietly and walks all the way to the bathroom. He doesn't close the door because it might possibly wake Erwin.

When he gets there, he hovers over the bathtub— his body over it, and he looks at it without doing anything for a few seconds until he actually moves his hand to the knob and fills it with water. Cold water. He needs it to be cold. Levi stands over it and watches the water collect, accumulate, and it takes a while for it to be filled completely. It's a bad substitute for the ocean, but the only option left.

He doesn't know why he doesn't want to lock the bathroom door when he steps into the bathtub. The cold water meets with his feet as he gets in and swallows him whole, but his clothes are still on. It doesn't matter.

As he sits in the bathtub, the water only goes all the way to his neck and not to his head. He wants to be submerged. To drown without dying. He wants the fire trapped inside him to be doused and put out, but it keeps coming back, so maybe this'll work, he thinks, as he lowers his head into the bathtub by keeping his legs together. This way, his head will be underneath the ocean.

The air bubbles return to the surface and after a few moments, it stops, and the water is intruding his air passage. He doesn't get up, but keeps himself underwater because it's too soon to go. It'll take more time to kill a fire. More, more. All of his body is colder now.

 

* * *

 

Erwin is awoken by the sound of water pouring. He checks the clock beside him and it reads 5AM. It's barely passed three hours since he went to sleep, and as he looks out to the door, he realizes it's not closed. His eyes fly down and Levi's not there. Although he might just be taking a ridiculously-late night shower, there is a bad feeling inside Erwin's chest that tells him it's not just a shower.

He decides he'll go check on him since he's awake, anyway.

"Levi?" he says outside the bathroom. His hands reach for the knob but the door isn't locked. Erwin doesn't want to go in because Levi may just be taking a shower— and honestly, he doesn't know about how many times he needs to take one— so he calls out to him. "Are you all right?"

No response.

"I'm going to come in if I don't hear from you in the next five seconds," Erwin says, but he only waits till the fourth second before he goes into the bathroom. He has a feeling Levi won't be responding, but he still hesitates to enter.

When he does, his eyes widen, and he can't help but let out a curse underneath his breath. Fuck.

Erwin dashes forward and drags the boy out— his arm around the collar of his shirt, willing himself not to tremble— and pulls him out with all the strength he's got. He keeps one hand behind Levi's head to support him and leans him against the rim of the tub. Levi coughs out water at the first breath he takes and his eyes meet with Erwin's, feeling like he's done something very wrong. Like stealing something, like committing a crime.

In him, there's a heartbeat he knows. It thumps so loudly he wonders if Erwin's hearing it. He's scared, he is.

Not of the fire. But of Erwin right now, with his blue eyes piercing into him like he wants to know the reason behind his little suicide attempt. It's not a suicide attempt. Levi wasn't trying to die — he was trying to put the fire out, but to Erwin, he supposes it's the same thing. Levi's lips shake a little, out of coldness, but he wants to say something.

It doesn't come out right.

Erwin speaks first. "What were you trying to do?"

"I wasn't trying to kill myself," Levi explains. It's not the full answer.

"No," he says. His voice is fierce and strict— so much so that Levi's more afraid of him than he is of any policemen or thug, in general. And Levi can't even look away. Erwin hasn't let go of him. "What was it that you were trying to achieve by putting yourself in a near-death situation?"

"I had a nightmare," he tells him, then elaborates. "I dreamt of the fire, the house. I was in there and my body caught fire and it wouldn't stop burning, so I," he pauses to breathe, "wanted to douse the fire. Put it out." Erwin doesn't say anything but continues to look at him with those eyes of his, and Levi doesn't know where he went wrong.

A few seconds later, Erwin lets go of his collar and slumps his hand to the side of the bathtub. His head follows and looks down, and Levi is left sitting in the tub wondering what and why. He waits for the man to form an answer, but Erwin just gently raises his arm and puts it down again— a seemly meaningless effort— and when he looks into Levi's eyes again, it's not fierce. It's a plead.

"Don't do this again," he tells him. His voice is teary like he doesn't want to lose him. He's lost too many.

Levi's eyes widen. The lecture he thought he'd receive doesn't come, and instead he gets this man in front of him as if crying to a ocean not to be an ocean. As if crying to a child not to grow up anymore. It feels like it's Levi's fault. His damp hands fall on Erwin's head tenderly and touches him. He's a stranger to him, there's too many things he doesn't know about him, but comfort doesn't need familiarity.

He can't relate well enough, but his hands don't leave him.

"I wouldn't have died."

Erwin raises his head a little more. "You just might," he says. "One day, you just might."

And Levi has to bite his lips to stop himself from saying  _good._


	3. Falling

Sitting on the side of the bathtub, he looks like a drenched rat.

Erwin takes a towel from the rack and dries the boy's hair the same way he always dries his own hair and at this point he doesn't know if his touches are rough or gentle. His fingers, on occasions, meet with Levi's skin— his neck, the nape, the arch of his collarbones— as he dries further down his skin. There's a certain intimacy in all of this — one he hasn't felt with anybody. Maybe it's the brokenness they both share and know.

The boy stays in silent for a while until he decides to break it.

"You're not scared of losing me, Erwin," he silently says. His mouth isn't moving much. "You're scared of loss."

The man pauses, his hands holding the edges of the towel around Levi's nape. "I know," he tells him, and continues drying the rest of his body.

Levi lets him do this but doesn't know what for. He can dry himself just fine without Erwin, but he feels like this is something Erwin needs— it reeks of forgiveness, a sin and someone who isn't much of a saint. A sinner for a priest. Levi knows Erwin is trying to care for him because he has words to say, words he can't say anymore to a corpse, and right now, Levi is still breathing, still alive, which is why Erwin's taking this chance to hold on to him before one day he doesn't.

Erwin grips Levi's wrist with the towel and doesn't let go. He's thinking— remembering, perhaps.

"Let go of me," Levi mutters. He hates this tenderness, this concern, this whatever — whatever it is, that he doesn't understand. Louder this time, "You can let go of me now."

"Don't go," Erwin tells him, his eyes on the floor— his head cast down so much that Levi can only see his hair. He's like an open wound; his mother's death is the cut that doesn't heal, and now when he touches water— loss— he starts to feel afraid, even if he isn't losing Levi. Even if what he's scared of isn't losing this boy he's just met; there is a part of him that thinks maybe he's growing attached, and it's a dangerous thing to do.

Levi isn't exactly someone who'll just stay and never leave.

"I'm not leaving," Levi just says crudely. He knows Erwin is talking about going as in dying and not leaving this house, so he realizes that he's implying, and it pisses him off more than anything.

"One day you will."

"Of course," he tells him, and there is no mercy in this. "One day, you and I won't be in this house, and one day, this house won't be here either. It'll become some other building. We'll become ashes or skeletons. It'll all happen, Erwin, so stop being such a fucking wreck and get over it or something. We're all going to lose something as long as we live — but  _fuck you_ if you think I'm going to die before you."

This sends a certain comfort down Erwin's chest as his eyes widen. The boy says it like he means it—like he's definitely not going to be the one whose funeral he'll witness, and it sounds like if he's going to die, he'll probably kill Erwin before that so that he won't be the one who suffers that loss. It's a promise, a prayer, something no one will ever tell him except for a person as blunt and cruel as him. Or maybe this cruelty is just the right kind of comfort.

A poison is his antidote. It makes Erwin smile.

He lets go of Levi's hand and gets up. "You're right."  _You are._

"I am," Levi says. A matter of fact.

"I'm glad you are," he truly is. For this moment he feels he won't lose him.

It makes Levi's heart settle when he sees Erwin stop being the wreck he was. He doesn't know if this is considered caring for him or just that he hated seeing him like that. Whether it was out of concern or intolerance, he guesses he'll never know. And all of a sudden, he feels a cold chill run down his spine.

"All bullshit aside — are you going to go or do I have to catch a cold before that?" Levi asks, remembering how drenched he still is.

Erwin snaps out of whatever he was thinking like he's just realized that Levi is freezing cold on the side of the bath tub and quickly says, "Sorry," with a clumsy smile. He throws a concerned gaze— one that almost escaped Levi— and is slightly hestitant to go, because he's still afraid of whether Levi will drown himself a second time, but looking at him now, it seemed he won't attempt it again. Breathing loudly, he heads for the door while saying, "I'll go now."

"Wait, Erwin," he calls out, stopping the man.

"Yes?"

"Get me some clothes," Levi has to tell him. He's just sitting there with a drenched shirt and trousers of his and it didn't even occur to him to at least bring him some clothes? Well, Levi thinks, he can't blame him. The whole thing was his fault and he's the one who decided it was a good idea to jump into a bathtub at 5AM in the morning just to put out an imaginary fire.

Come to think of it, the whole thing was just plain stupid. He mentally chides himself. 

Erwin smiles again. "Will do."

 

* * *

 

They return to the bedroom, eventually. Everything does; the dust, the breaths he couldn't take.

They sleep the same as before. Only this time, Erwin's body is moved closer to the edge of his bed— in Levi's direction— and he faces his way, his eyes softly watching him. He notices the way Levi's eyes move underneath his eyelids as he sleeps, the way his every inhale and exhale sounds like a shore; or waves crashing tranquilly into the rocks in a movement not to possess but to wash out the dirt inside a living soul.

Something about the boy makes Erwin wishes he'll stay.

Levi sleeps with his heart in his mouth — there is always something he still wants to say but doesn't, and there is nothing he regrets about it. Even if the person he wants to say it to goes and die before him, dies an ugly death, he won't regret it. He won't be all sentimental and start fearing loss like that man. He doesn't think he ever will.

He wants to.

 

* * *

 

"Wake up," he mutters as he shakes Levi's shoulders gently but with enough strength to wake him. "I cooked breakfast."

Levi stirs in his sleep, makes a soft groan and turns the other way. He deliberately avoids Erwin's touches, and hides his face in his pillow, hoping he'll just go away if he tries hard enough. "Go away. I'm not hungry."

Erwin shakes him even more. "You'll still need to wake up."

He isn't a morning person. Some days, he wishes he could just skip mornings and wake up in the night— which Hanji has told him was the same as turning nocturnal. Levi eventually gives up and stares right into Erwin's eyes— his blue eyes darkened by the angle he's looking at him— and they still looked beautiful. He doesn't try to hide the fact that he thinks Erwin is hot, or that he has beautiful eyes. There's just no point.

Neither is there a point in waking up, though.

"Come on," Erwin perseveres. "We're going shopping today, remember?"

Levi blinks. He's forgotten. It's a wonder that Erwin remembers things better than him, considering his age. Levi doesn't think he's old, but he knows there's at least a ten-year gap between them. Sighing, he pushes his body up and sits up. "Right, whatever," he resists a yawn. "I'm up. Happy?"

Erwin smiles. It looks real enough. "Extremely."

He looks like a sun. He's blinding, he's the light, he's the thing he wants to shut his eyes from. Levi rubs his eyes and wills his brain to stay awake and not just slump back to the bed and fall asleep again. Eventually, he manages to get up from the mattress on his own two feet and as soon as he does that, Erwin walks towards the door and soon.

Levi follows after he tidies the bed up.

 

Breakfast is scrabbled eggs and pancakes, and appetizing it looks, he doesn't have an appetite.

There's a nauseating sensation inside his stomach that tells him that if he opens his mouth and takes a bite, he might throw up. There's a possibility. He usually isn't like this, but it has something to do with the accident. Too much shock and trauma kills his appetite all the way back to the end of his throat.

"I wasn't lying when I said I wasn't hungry, you know."

"Don't push yourself, then," Erwin says understandingly. He knows how aftermath feels like, firsthand. "You should at least take a few bites. Just one or two is fine. I don't want you getting malnourished."

"Yeah," he pokes at the eggs with the fork and puts a bit of it in his mouth. "Because then you'd have to pay for my medical bills, too."

Erwin looks like he's been accused of something untrue. Levi meant it as a joke, although some part of himself believes it as well. He just didn't think it'll upset Erwin at all, seeing as they aren't close to the extent they'd have to consider each other's feelings before saying something. It wouldn't have mattered to Levi, accusation or lies, or insults.

"I don't understand why you keep trying to find fault in my words."

Levi drinks the cup of water on the table — his loss of appetite doesn't extend to drinking, and he's glad for that. He feels talkative today, at least. "And I don't understand why you care so much."

"Does it matter?" Erwin asks, and makes a mental note to himself that it's useless to try to treat Levi with care and concern because he'll always find a way to turn everything around and call it a hidden motive he doesn't have. It's good, he supposes. It's not really inside his blood to want to care for another human being, and the only thing that makes him want to care for Levi is the fact that he's a kid.

And as he has said, Levi does seem to have no appetite at all. All he's eaten is just a few bites out of the pancakes and eggs, and Erwin thinks to himself, well at least something goes into his stomach.

"No," he admits, feeling like he's going to throw up. It's his body so he knows he can't eat more than this. He barely feels hungry. Putting the utensils on the table, he tells Erwin, "I'm done eating. You want me to wash my own dishes or something?"

"It's fine, leave it. I'll wash them together," Erwin says, putting another small slice of pancake in his mouth, and Levi gives him a slight nod before heading over to the couch to check on his phone.

10 unread messages from Hanji.

The last one reads:  _"Okay, fine, I won't ask you about that some blonde guy you're cohabiting with. I won't ask anything at all. My mouth is zipped. I just wanna make sure you're fine, so can we hang out today?"_

Lazily, he writes a reply:  _"Not free today."_

Hanji's reply comes minutes after, saying _, "Sunday?"_

 _"Fine. Park outside school. 11AM,"_  he types.

_"Okie dokie!"_

Levi doesn't reply after that. The right hand corner of his phone shows a red battery — which is currently 15% right now. And of course, he doesn't have a charger in his bag. Just great, he thinks to himself. His phone probably wouldn't last for more than three more hours if he uses it constantly. Looking over at Erwin who is still eating his breakfast, he decides to ask him, "Do you have a phone charger I can borrow?"

Erwin glances at him. "What brand?"

"Apple," Levi says. Honestly, he doesn't like the brand and is thinking of changing to another. That's not happening any time soon, he knows, since he's completely broke and relying on the help of a stranger.

"Yeah, I do," the man tells him. "On the table beside my bed — you won't miss it."

At his words, Levi gets up from the couch and quickly walks to Erwin's room. He trudges over to the table, grabs the only white wire plain in sight and plugs his phone in.

He's about to walk away when he starts noticing that Erwin's bed is messy and unmade. It has nothing to do with him, that bed is not his, and however messy Erwin is, that's just none of his business. But the urge is strong, and eventually, he gives up.

Levi spends a few seconds putting the pillow back in position and folds the blanket, straightens out the bedspreads and gives it a final pat. His own bed— well, mattress— is also neat. It gives him a sense of satisfaction he can't explain. It just makes him feel better if everything is neat and clean, although just tidying Erwin's bed isn't enough to satisfy him.

And then he hears a voice from behind him.

"Either you're a neat freak or you're trying to find strands of my hair and do something evil with it," Erwin says from outside the room, amused. He's been watching him, apparently. "I'm thinking the former."

Levi walks out of the room and passes him by. "No, I really was trying to find strands of your hair to use your DNA as part of my evil plans of destroying the world, and whoops, you just found out about it. Con-fucking-gratulations," he says sarcastically and rolls his eyes. He knows he's obsessed about cleanliness and neatness, but he hates being labeled like that. It's just part of him.

"It appears that nothing decent will ever come out of your mouth," Erwin sighs in fake disappointment. He's not completely bothered by Levi's sarcasm, but it doesn't have to be an argument every single time they talk.

Levi glares at him, the two of them outside the room now. "What are you, my grandmother?"

"Would your grandmother bring you shopping?"

"If she rises from the grave, then yes."

"Then yes."

 _Unbelievable,_  Levi thinks to himself _. Erwin is._  One minute he's a sobbing wreck and the other he's just a bastard. He sighs and puts a hand on his head, and realizes something. He looks at the over-sized clothes he's wearing, and then back at Erwin again. Pulling the shirt to show what he means, he says, "You realize I can't go out in your over-sized clothes."

"I know," Erwin says, smiling as though he's anticipated this. He then goes into his room and takes out Levi's clothes from the bottom of his wardrobe which isn't filled with his own things. "Which is why I've taken the liberty of washing your clothes and drying them overnight so you can wear them today."

"Well," Levi seems half-impressed as he takes back his clothes. "At least you're good for something."

"Believe me, I'm good for many other things," Erwin says, not necessarily wanting to boast. He knows Levi wouldn't be impressed by anything. Even if he was the wealthiest man in the world, Levi wouldn't give a second thought about punching him right in the face. There's a feeling, actually, that Erwin gets when he's with Levi: he feels utterly ordinary.

"And believe me," Levi quotes, and he says the predictable response, "I don't give a shit."

With his clothes in his hands, he enters the bathroom and locks it.

 

* * *

 

"How about this one?" Erwin asks as he takes a white elbow-length shirt out from the number of clothes hanging there.

"No," Levi says indifferently, looking at the other clothes. So far he's only holding two shirts in his hand— one of them dark blue and the other one black. He also has trousers and jeans, which of course are also dark colors. "White gets dirty too easily. Get me something black."

Erwin thinks Levi's a little too fussy. The only colors Levi would choose are dark blue, dark purple, black, dark something, which just rules out all the bright colors and most definitely white. Levi also checks the price tag before he chooses a shirt and if he thinks it's too expensive, he won't take it.

Honestly, he's grateful that Levi isn't using this chance to spend all of his money, but he didn't think taking him shopping would be this troublesome. So far, Levi has avoided shops that are too dirty— literally— for him, and those that are too expensive-looking. They then stumbled into this shop which has suitable clothes and reasonable prices.

In the end, he only picks five clothes and seven bottom wear. Some of the jeans are light blue, and that makes Erwin wonder why he's okay with the bottoms being a pale color and not the tops, but he doesn't ask.

"Why don't you get more shirts?" Erwin asks. Five is still too less.

"The designs are mostly the same here," Levi tells him. "I'll just get more from other stores later."

Erwin nods, the idea of needing to go to more stores rolling inside his head and forms a headache in its place. He massages his temples, his eyes feel like they're squinting because of the pain. "All right. Why don't you go and try the clothes?"

"What for?" he asks. "I never try the clothes I buy. All of them fit me, anyway. It's not like I don't know what my size is or that I've grown incredibly fat or thin for the past few days."

He sighs. "It wouldn't kill you to try them on. At least just one pair."

"Fucking old man. You're too careful," Levi mutters under his breath, but goes to the dressing room anyway. He doesn't have to listen to Erwin. He could have just disregarded his wishes and done the things he wants to, but he doesn't, and it troubles him, sometimes. There is an authority-like feeling when Erwin tells him to do things. It isn't an arrogant, snobby kind of high-ranking person— it's more of a sureness that makes him listen.

He locks the dressing room and changes into one of the black-colored shirts he picked. It's buttoned and the sleeve is down to his wrist, but it can be folded and buttoned to the length of his elbow, which he does, casually. He doesn't button the top one and leaves it open— revealing his collarbones. The jeans fit just right, not too tight around his shins; and there's still space when it reaches the end.

Fixing it up briefly, he then opens the dressing room door again and runs a few fingers through his hair. "I told you they'd fit."

Erwin finds himself in a daze. His first thoughts were:  _I never knew he could look like that._

"Yeah, sorry. It looks nice," he tells him after quite some time, although nice isn't the word he wants to use. He feels like he's just done something horribly wrong that he still wants to continue doing—well, God, he just likes doing everything wrong, doesn't he?

After a few seconds of being pissed at Erwin, he closes the door roughly and starts to change out of the clothes. Minutes later, he comes out with the clothes in his hands and Erwin has his wallet ready. He brought enough money, of course, since he wanted Levi to buy enough clothes— as much as he used to have. It'll help him get better, but Erwin isn't doing this to make Levi get better— he isn't trying to fix something. He cares for the boy because he can't help but want to.

It's an infuriating thing— this feeling, this gentle aching.

The total comes to $232.90 and Erwin pays in cash.

 

* * *

 

They arrive home with many clothes and a few pairs of shoes. Levi keeps the boxes of shoes at the bottom of the shoe rack and decides to deal with them when he needs to. The rest of the three plastic bags all full of his clothes are put on the couch, seeing as Erwin hasn't quite made space in his wardrobe for Levi's clothes yet.

Then that gives him an idea. "That other room has a wardrobe, right?" Levi asks, sitting on the couch while Erwin's in the kitchen drinking water.

Erwin puts down the cup he's drinking from, throwing a glance at him— in which Levi doesn't know if it's surprise or concern— and asks, "You're planning on using it?"

"Yeah, after I clean it. I bet it's full of dirt and disgusting insects right now," he says, not giving Erwin much of a choice as he walks closer to him, looking around inside the kitchen and opening all of the drawers in the surroundings. Loud thuds follow almost immediately as he slams the drawers close. "Where are all of your cleaning supplies?"

"Top drawers. Third one from the left."

Levi opens it and thanks God he can reach it— because if he can't, it'll just give Erwin one more reason to mock him about or bring up in an argument. It may be just his own paranoia. Erwin isn't the sort of person who'd rub it in about something someone already dislikes about themselves, and Levi starts wondering to himself if he's got this man all wrong. If he thinks about him all wrong.

Until now, he still doesn't know the sort of person he is. He doesn't think Erwin knows much about him, either. Both of them get along fine, and share a couple of sad memories over cigarettes, but that's all, really. It isn't so bad. He thinks he might be staying after all.

Gathering the cleaning supplies in his hands, he closes the drawer gentler this time and goes to that other room.

He spends the next few hours cleaning it like he's trying to clean out stains from himself. To him, cleaning something is the same as purifying it, despite the fact of him not being religious. He finds it difficult to believe in God, or a higher power, some invisible guy sitting up in the clouds and watching their every move and condemns them to hell if they don't follow certain things.

Levi silently laughs to himself about the stupidity of that.

 _The dead and the dirt mix with each other inside the Earth_. he thinks _. It bears no smell._

* * *

 

He finishes cleaning the wardrobe and the floor of the room in a few hours and manages to put all of the clothes he's bought today into it. When he does this, the house feels like a home. He feels like he's gotten back a piece of that homey feeling — like one location, one small room, belongs to him and him completely. Like it was bare and he's the first one who's touched all corners.

Erwin gives him an extra phone charger that he has so Levi won't have to go to his room every time he needs it. Levi gets a room, and there's this separation inside their skins.

Things feel different and it's the first day they've actually spent together. Levi thinks him and Erwin talk like they've known each other for a long time, but he knows that's not it. That's not what he's trying to say.

He wears his new clothes and doesn't eat a lot at dinner. His appetite doesn't seem to be coming back anymore, and he hates not being in control of his own body. It's a powerlessness he wants to incapacitate to let it escape — force it out of him with his fingertips, how a strength doesn't go all the way out, how even if he wants to, it doesn't reach the things he wants to touch.

 

* * *

 

As he watches television on the couch, Erwin sits beside him with a bowl of chicken soup in his hands.

"Here," he says as he passes the bowl and a spoon to Levi. Again, his voice sounds gentle— even his actions are. "You didn't eat much for breakfast and dinner so I cooked this for you. It's not solid food so you won't have a problem consuming it."

Levi's eyes widen at this gesture but he takes the bowl in his hands carefully. The temperature of the soup— as far as Levi can tell by holding the bowl— is set just right for him to drink. It's no coincidence and he thinks Erwin must have waited for it to be at the right temperature before bringing it to him. This man is strange. He does unnecessary things that makes him warm.

"You don't have to be so good to me," Levi mutters quietly as he drinks more of the soup. It's delicious and he doesn't find it quite as nauseating as food he needs to bite on.

But Erwin does need to be good to him. He does. He needs to find a place to put all of his care in, or he'll start over thinking and he doesn't want that. It's not so much for Levi than it is for him, but this selfish act benefits them both under the fallacy of genuine concern. He sits beside him for a while and shares the warmth of each other's body before he tells him, "I do."

"No, you don't. You just have too much time on your hands."

Erwin chuckles. "Maybe."

He doesn't leave until he sees Levi finish the last drop of the soup. And when he does leave, he wordlessly gives Levi a packet of cigarettes— the exact brand he smokes. Erwin must have seen it yesterday. He's a horrible person, Levi feels, he's already told him he'll try to quit and he goes and gives him another packet of the same thing he wants to throw away.

But still, he can't get rid of it after all. Erwin is right.  _You fucker_ , the voice inside his head says. He takes a cigarette out of the box and goes to the balcony to light it.

 

* * *

 

"You can sleep in the other room if you want to. It's clean now, after all," Erwin suggests as the both of them are standing outside the bedroom. He's indifferent towards whether Levi sleeps in his room or inside another room, but his voice is telling him otherwise. His head and his body operates differently and it seems like his body might want— need— the presence of another human being.

It's a bad addiction and he can't quit it now. Presence to Erwin is like cigarettes to Levi. It's not a good example at all. Levi meets his eyes.

"It's troublesome to move the mattress around," he says, not looking at Erwin. "So forget it."

When Levi's eyes fall back on Erwin, he sees that the edge of his lips are pulled upwards into a smile he knows the meaning of. It's just an excuse, the trouble of moving it around, because it doesn't take more than just a few seconds to move it. It's an excuse he doesn't bother to think of, because he's never intended to hide it. Levi doesn't want to deny himself of what he truly wants, no matter how much his past self might have chided him for it.

He's outgrown the phase of being a kid. If he wants something, he'll want it without hiding it behind a well-thought excuse that turns himself into a vulnerability of some sort. Like the excuses being afraid of nightmares, or not being able to sleep alone — those are worse.

Levi likes Erwin's presence to sleep to. That's all.

He changes into something simple to sleep in and goes inside the room.

 

Erwin's voice cuts into the silence they've created. He faces Levi. "Will there be a funeral?"

"No," he tells him and shakes his head, not sure if he can see him in the dark, anyway. It doesn't really matter. "They wanted to be directly cremated and have their ashes scattered into the sea."

"Your father doesn't seem like the man to be fine with something as simple as a direct cremation," he says, even though he's never met Levi's father. From what he's heard, that man shot his wife and burnt down the house along with himself in an act of possessiveness and jealousy. These type of people are more likely to want attention from others, to be glorified and put on a pedestal.

"I know what you're thinking," Levi comments. "But it's because of his possessiveness that he wants such a way to leave. He doesn't want to share his wife's or his own dying moments with anyone else but just the two of them. It's fucking disgusting, if you ask me — that sort of thinking."

Erwin nods to himself. "And you're okay with it? The whole no funeral thing?"

Funerals are for the living, someone has said it once. Levi doesn't remember if it's from a book or a line he heard as he walked into a crowd, but it makes sense. If no one's going to go to mourn their deaths anyway, there isn't a need for them to have one if they don't want it. He breathes with his arm underneath his pillow, the moonlight shining into the room again.

"I was the one who told them I wouldn't want to go to their funeral if they died, which is why they wrote that in their will. It was an impulse," he says, pausing. "For me, I don't think it matters if there's a funeral or not. It's just a waste of money."

Erwin doesn't share the sentiment but he tries to understand. "For most people, it's a time for them to mourn over the deceased, but I suppose that in your case, it's not needed," he comments, but he thinks Levi needs that few days of mourning like everybody else, too. Erwin can see that he is coping fine but it's the loss of his house and the fire that set it ablaze that makes him unable to move on or forget quickly.

"I'm not sure," Levi starts to say softly, "that I'll ever need that time."

"Don't think of yourself as something less than a human, Levi," the man says. Not feeling sad about someone's death doesn't mean he's an unfeeling monster— not all people grieve over death, especially not a person whose attitude towards death is that it'll happen eventually and to everyone on this Earth. He just accepts it easier.

"I don't."

Human or not human, Levi is. He just is. When asked:  _Are you a human or are you not?_  The answer to it is _: Yes._

Erwin exhales. It is shaky.

"You'll go and collect their ashes, then?"

"A few days later."

Erwin nods, and they don't say anything right after. There isn't a need to. For them, they make each other whole in all the wrong ways. Take a head of a man and the body of a horse for example — they fit, barely, movable and alive, but it's wrong. It's whole, but it's the wrong half, but one day, when a sin drags on for a long period of time, it becomes something right. One day— Erwin thinks— they'll fit whole and correctly.

He's fallen.


End file.
